‘GREEN’ CLINIC IN BANTAYAN: Rich man’s service at poor man’s prices

What started out as a birthday gift idea for his father turned into an avenue for an environmental lawyer to promote health and nature. Antonio Oposa Jr., a Ramon Magsaysay awardee in 2009, has teamed up with a cooperative clinic to provide low-cost, quality healthcare in a “green” facility which broke ground last week on Bantayan Island.

The B’yai Kalipay, which means home of happiness in the local dialect, aims to promote climate change resilience, good nutrition and health awareness in the coastal community that suffered the wrath of supertyphoon Yolanda. The island has only one district hospital with limited services and the poverty rate soared to 80 percent in Sta. Fe town after supertyphoon Yolanda struck.

About four years ago, he wanted to build a small health center as a gift to his now 90-year-old father, renowned surgeon Dr. Antonio C. Oposa Sr. After he met Din Mabanta, a doctor who manages a health cooperative in Cebu City, the idea transformed into a happiness center that would advance his cause and proposition that the Earth’s well-being and a person’s health are directly related.

Solar powered B’yai Kalipay, which will offer laboratory tests, prenatal checkups and nutrition education, will be powered by solar energy.

The structure will be on 8-foot stilts to avoid flood waters while roofdeck and windowsill gardens will lower the temperature and provide medicinal fruits and vegetables. Container vans will be used to make a pentagon-shaped modular structure connected by bridges and surrounded by plants. At the center is a pond with fishes and seagrass and a scale model of the Bantayan Group of Islands. W

ithout a single peso to fund the project, Oposa and Mabanta pushed through with the groundbreaking of B’yai Kalipay. “Become a force of nature and nature will take its course,” Oposa said. Bayanihan A foundation has offered to put up the building but Oposa turned it down.

“We want this to be an example of bayanihan spirit at work,” he said. A list of needed materials will be given to those who wish to donate and monetary donations above P5,000 will not be accepted. “We will be working with Panchito Puckett and the Energy Development Corp. for the solar power,” he said.

Laboratory equipment like X-ray, ultrasound and ECG will be accepted but the cooperative will pay it back in installments.

“We will not give doles and, at the same time, we will not receive doles,” Oposa said. “Filipinos have dignity and we are capable of cooperating with each other in the spirit of bayanihan.

That’s what we’re trying to prove here.” Oposa discussed the project concept during a dialogue held by the Ramon Magsaysay Transformative Leadership Institute and the World Health Organization-Western Pacific Region at the WHO Headquarters in Manila in May.

The dialogue was the first in the Asian Solutions Series 2014 that aims to guide communities to become disaster-resilient. B’yai Kalipay is expected to open in August this year.

“We will make a walkway and bike lane around the perimeter so that people can exercise. It’s a health facility, we will promote health and happiness,” Oposa said. “During the groundbreaking, I talked to the children and they would help cultivate the garden so they could eat more vegetables,” he said. “We will start weaning people away from rice. It’s very harmful to your health. It has very low nutrients and high sugar content,” he said. “Camote is very good because it has antioxidants and it’s also climate resilient.

The leaves can also be eaten raw, if needed.” “I’ve been talking to people about the environment for the past 30 years and most are indifferent. They would say, ‘I don’t even have anything to eat,’” he said.

“Finally, I have an avenue to make people understand that the health of the planet is directly related to the health of the person, and vice versa. The health of the person is a necessary requisite for us to be able to take care of the Earth.”

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